Kukla's Korner Hockey

It doesn’t compute that Marian Gaborik can’t thrive playing under Tortorella’s defense-oriented, hard-on-the-puck philosophy; not when the winger scored 40 or more goals in two of his first three seasons playing for this coach.

But it also does not compute that Tortorella would have shifted Gaborik, who had spent his entire career at right wing, to left wing ... and moreover, would have stranded him there for more than two dozen games even after it had become painfully obvious the move was detrimental to the winger’s performance.

By doing this, Tortorella put Gaborik in a position to fail, which he has, stunningly, now with three goals in 22 games since Jan. 26, with all of them coming against the Islanders’ Evgeni Nabokov. Indeed, Gaborik has scored in only five of the Rangers’ 27 matches.

And now, the Blueshirts are seeking to move Gaborik again ... this time out of town by the April 3 trade deadline. It’s going to be a tough sale at $7.5 million on the cap through next season, even tougher because the Rangers need value in return for No. 10, who has provided management with a list of 10 teams to which he cannot be dealt under terms of his no-trade clause.